Serious games in energy policy research

G. Brückmann

Institute of Political Science (IPW) & Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research | University of Bern

OCCR Apéro Series, Bern, CH

23 September 2025

Serious Game ensured energy

Serious Games

Games that do not have entertainment, enjoyment or fun as their primary purpose. (Michael & Chen, 2005)

In ensured energy players manage the Swiss energy system until 2050:

Screenshot ENSURED ENERGY policy intro

 

  • Challenged by physical constrains & shocks

  • Feedback on CO2, cost, energy imports & land use

So … ?

To find out who would play a serious game for research, take a look at our pre-print: arxiv.org/abs/2508.12799 (Simpson et al., 2025)

To play ensured energy on your own computer,
go to sweet-sure.ch/game/

References

Michael, D. R., & Chen, S. (2005). Serious games: Games that educate, train, and inform. https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:108548774
Simpson, T., Jones, S., Brückmann, G., El-Ajou, W., Moreira, E., Oltra, B. M., Krause, R., Multerer, M., & Stadelmann, I. (2025). Ensured Energy: A simulation game to elicit preferences around Swiss energy transition pathways. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2508.12799